Islam--and the Sunni-Shia Divide

I﻿slam, one of the world’s three major religions along with Christianity and Judaism, was begun in the early 600s AD by Mohammad, of the Yemeni tribes. He was born in 570 AD and lived in the Mecca and Medina area of what is now Saudi Arabia where Arabs were worshipping many gods in typical paganism. Mohammad chose his favorite among the pagan gods, his tribal god, whose name was Allah, a moon god. Mohammad was not a descendent of Ishmael as some Muslims claim and he, himself, rejected that false claim. Ishmael lived in the Sinai and the Ishmaelite tribes disappeared after the 7th century BC. The argument by Tribal Arabs of who should inherit what was both the political and religious title of supreme Caliph (ruler of Islam) dates back to the death in 632 AD of Islam’s founder, Muhammad. After his death, the majority of Muslims, who would go on to become known as the Sunnis, backed Abu Bakr, a friend of Muhammad and father of one of his many wives, Aisha. Others thought Muhammad’s relatives were the rightful successors -- they became known as the Shia, a contraction of "shiaat Ali." They claimed the Prophet had anointed Ali, his cousin and son-in-law. Abu Bakr’s backers (Sunni) won out, although Ali did briefly rule as the fourth caliph. Islam's split was cemented when Ali’s son Hussein was killed in 680 AD in Karbala (modern Iraq) by the ruling Sunni caliph’s troops. Sunni rulers continued to monopolize political power, while the Shia lived in the shadow of the state, looking instead to their imams for guidance, the first twelve of whom were descended directly from Ali. Today, of the total Muslim population, 87-90% is Sunni and 10-13% are Shia and 70-80% of those Shia live in the four countries of Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq (where the population is nearly half Shia and half Sunni). The Shias’ sense of marginalization and oppression has led to mourning ceremonies such as ashura (followers flagellate themselves to commemorate Hussein’s death at Karbala). The world’s 1.6 billion Muslims all agree that Allah is the only god and Muhammad his messenger. They follow five ritualistic pillars of Islam, including Ramadan (the month of fasting), and share a holy book, the Koran/Quran. While Sunnis rely heavily on the practice of the Prophet and his teachings (the “sunna”), the Shia see their ayatollahs as reflections of God on earth. That has led Sunnis to accuse Shia of heresy, whereas Shia point out that Sunni dogmatism has led to extremist sects such as the puritanical Wahhabis (an especially large group of Muslims in Saudi Arabia). Most Shia sects place importance on the belief that the twelfth and final imam is hidden (called "in occultation") and will reappear one day to fulfill divine will. However all endorse the following: Jihad is an Islamic term meaning “struggle” or “resisting” which is the religious duty of Muslims. The beginnings of Jihad are traced back to the words and actions of Muhammad and the Quran which incites the use of Jihad against non-Muslims, particularly Christians and Jews. Jihad appears often (164 times) in the Quran expressing "striving in the way of allah.” A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid (plural mujahideen). Within the context of the classical Islamic law, it refers to struggle against those who do not believe in the Islamic god (Allah) and do not acknowledge submission to Islam, and so is often translated as "Holy War.” In reality, the term defines the means of gaining territory, power and wealth. Most scholars agree that jihad will always include armed struggle against those they consider wrong doers, that is, non-Muslims. Convert or be killed is their objective. Caliphate means “the government under a caliph.” It was the political-religious state comprising the Muslim community, the lands and peoples under its dominion in the centuries following the death (632 AD) of Muhammad. A caliphate was ruled by a caliph (Arabic khalīfah, “successor”), who held temporal and sometimes spiritual authority. The empire of the Caliphate grew rapidly through conquest during Islam’s first two centuries to include most of SW Asia, North Africa, and Spain. Dynastic struggles later brought about the Caliphate’s decline, especially after the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258. In the last century, it ended with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire after WW I. Presently, ISIS declared a caliphate, called it simply Islamic State (IS), and declared its caliph of all Islam to be Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Sharia Law: Sharia law as a legal system covers a wide range of topics. Legal codes deal primarily with public behavior, but Sharia law covers public and private behavior as well as private beliefs. A caliph can and often does invoke Sharia Law, but a political system can also invoke it. History: While there have been local or regional clashes between Sunni & Shia, there have not been large scale wars until recent times, notably the Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988) when Iraq invaded Iran. The war ended in a stalemate. Recent history: Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s President from 1979-2003, was a member of the Sunni revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and socialism. A sect of that party which originated in 1999 was the forerunner of what is commonly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Following the invasion of Iraq by US forces and their allies in 2003, and the election of Al-Maliki (a Shia) in 2005, AQI joined other Sunni insurgent groups in 2006 to form the Mujahideen Shura Council, which consolidated further into the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). At its height, it enjoyed a significant presence in Al Anbar, Nineveh, Kirkuk and other areas under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also a Sunni. However, beginning in 2007, the Surge (“clear, hold, build”) of American forces and the backlash against the violent methods of AQI caused its decline by 2008. Iraqis had united to a great degree and Iraq was a more peacefully united country. Nevertheless, Pres. Obama, apparently for his own personal and political reasons, withdrew all American forces in 2011 against the wisdom and advice of knowledgeable military officers, leaving Iraq wide open to resumed violence. Malik’s government was Shia, the AQI was Sunni and the tension between the two groups was a powerful recruiting tool for ISI. The mass murder / genocide of Christians in Mosul and Tikrit and execution of hundreds of Iraq soldiers created a pall of fear and despair among the general population but ISIS expanded. It had had close links to al-Qaeda until February 2014 when, after an eight-month power struggle, al-Qaeda cut ties with the group, reportedly for its brutality and "notorious intractability.” Today, the lines that divide Muslims in the Middle East are being drawn by politics as much as by religion. The "Shia Crescent" is territory that runs from Iran through Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria to the Hezbollah in Lebanon and was once praised by Sunni. But the upheavals in the region have pitted Shia governments against Sunni Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who have supported their co-religionists financially. The money is strengthening Sunni assertiveness and making the Shia feel even more threatened than usual. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or ISIL (the “L” for Levant, a geographic and cultural region of the Eastern Mediterranean) is a Sunni, extremist, jihadist, self-proclaimed caliphate state unrecognized (at the present time) in Iraq and Syria in the Middle East. The group's original goal was to establish an Islamic state in the Sunni-majority regions of Iraq where the government was led by Shias. ISIS then entered into the Syrian Civil War and now has a large force in Syria. In 2014, the depraved beheading of American journalist, James Foley, followed by the beheadings of two British men, another American, Lebanese soldiers and an unknown number of Syrian soldiers were committed. ISIS proclaimed a worldwide caliphate on 29 June 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named as its caliph, and the group renamed itself the Islamic State (IS). It claims religious authority over all Muslims worldwide with the goal of bringing most Muslim-inhabited regions of the world under its political control. Re USA and Muslims: The non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies states that "Our immigrationsystem is a vital part of national security” and “The primary threat from a group like ISIS to the homeland is through our immigration system.” The number of 2013 immigrants to the U.S. from Muslim countries was more than 2.4 million, compared 1.5 million in 2000. The largest charter school chain in the U.S. is the Gulen chain (founder: Fethullah Gulen, an Islamist imam) with 135 charter schools in 26 states as of 2011-12-- schools which receive approximately $150 million a year in U.S. taxpayer money. –Marty McKenney / 2014 Click here to Blood on the Sword for a more comprehensive study of the Islam religion.

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